The fitness of the players at FC Barcelona is a major priority for the club this summer. Ever since the appointment of German coach Hansi Flick, the Catalan club has become more eager about the physical fitness of their players. Unfortunately, Barcelona has not had the chance to train several key players who are already injured or unavailable.
At the moment, several first-team players are unavailable for club duty due to their recent participation in either the European Championship or the Copa America. However, Barcelona have had to unfortunately deal with a few key losses for a longer period of time as well.
First came Pedri, who was injured while playing for Spain against Germany. Not too long after that, Uruguayan defender Ronald Araujo also ended up injured while playing for Uruguay against Brazil in the Copa America quarter-finals.
However, as highlighted by SPORT, Araujo has not even returned to the club yet despite his injury. Ideally, Barcelona would have preferred for the 25-year-old defender to return to the club’s facilities so that the doctors and medical staff could properly examine his condition.
Unfortunately, the player decided to stay with his National team until the very end. Now, with Uruguay eliminated, Araujo is expected to return to Barcelona to get himself checked before he can actually take the time off to enjoy and relax for his vacations.
At the moment, there is clear frustration within the Barcelona camp about the events that have followed after his injury, however. Reports from Uruguay have been vague at best, only highlighting clear facts such as that the player has a muscular injury without specifying the amount of recovery time that he may need.
It is feared that the player’s injury could be bad enough for him to miss several weeks of action. This could mean that the Uruguayan defender ends up having to miss the entirety of the Barcelona preseason but may also miss the first two games of the official season.